The narcissism of mathematics education

Abstract

Why does mathematics education research create a reality so at odds with the one experienced by the vast majority of teachers and students worldwide? This chapter is part of an ongoing venture that seeks to analyse the ideological belongings of contemporary educational research, by focusing in the particular case of mathematics education. Here, the author displays some elements of Pfaller’s materialist approach to philosophy and Žižek’s ideology critique to analyse common shared assumptions of researchers when conceiving the influence of their work in practice. It is argued that mathematics education research needs to shift its perspective and recognise in its symptoms-students’ systematic failure, absence of change, increasing of testing, pernicious political and economic influences, etc.- the violent expression of the disavowed part of itself.